Several start-ups will be able to share the €93.7 million package planned by ArcelorMittal to help decarbonise the steel industry. (Photo: Matic Zorman/Maison Moderne/archives)

Several start-ups will be able to share the €93.7 million package planned by ArcelorMittal to help decarbonise the steel industry. (Photo: Matic Zorman/Maison Moderne/archives)

Startups offering a technological solution to decarbonise the steel industry are invited to apply to ArcelorMittal's XCarb Accelerator Programme. The prize is €93.7m in funding.

ArcelorMittal is launching its XCarb Accelerator Programme this year. The Luxembourg-based international steel company is calling on startups from all over the world to present their solutions for accelerating the decarbonisation of the steel industry.

The prize is up to €93.7m ($100m) in investment for research, development, technology commercialisation and business mentoring. This amount could be shared between the selected companies. The number of companies is not fixed in advance.

Since the fund was launched in March 2021, €168.7m has already been released towards four startups (Heliogen, Form Energy, LanzaTech, H2Pro). There is also no fixed sum per individual company. “Each opportunity will be evaluated on its own merits,” ArcelorMittal writes. They will also benefit from the steel giants expertise in research, industry, commercialisation and scaling.

Contacted, the group said it would not yet publish who would decide the winners, and how.

Seven categories

In order to be eligible, certain criteria must be met: Applicants must “develop a directly applicable technology” with “strong potential for decarbonising the steel industry” and that is “commercially scalable”.

ArcelorMittal cites seven distinct areas:

1. Disruption of the steel industry (processes and technologies)

2. Waste to gas or bio-carbon (innovative ways to convert waste)

3. Gas reforming/transformation technologies

4. Disruptive technologies in the field of hydrogen

5. Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (in particular carbon capture with conversion to chemicals/fuel or permanent sequestration/mineralisation)

6. Long-term and large-scale energy storage technologies

7. Clean energy technologies

To , download , fill it in and send it by e-mail before 20 June to [email protected]. This should include a pitch summarising the problem being addressed and the proposed solution, the competitive advantage of the participating team, and an overview of the market and the route to reach it.

The finalists will be invited to present their ideas to a panel of industry experts at a dedicated Accelerator Day in mid-July. The date is yet to be confirmed.

"The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is one of the greatest investment requirements of our time," comments ArcelorMittal CEO . The company has had its own development centres for disruptive technologies for 50 years, including one near Metz. And it has committed to investing €93.7m over five years in Breakthrough Energy's Catalyst programme, which aims to evolve technologies to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

This story was first published in French on . It has been translated and edited for Delano.